My Sister's response to American Girl

As I look at my daughters' collections of a total of 4 AG dolls, Bitty Baby, Coconut, Licorice and many, many clothes and accessories, I now feel sorrow instead of joy.

Toys that were meant to enhance their femininity and girlhood are now shrouded with the despicable choice of an organization American Girl has aligned itself with.

My daughters monthly have gone to AG Club meetings at a Christian book store. Lots of her homeschooled friends begin studying periods of history through the AG books.

I never expected nor found all that the company does to meet up with all of my personal convictions or beliefs. Yet, it seems that you should realize that much of your consumer base is at least moderately conservative and would be absolutely offended with your support of an organization that promotes abortion and lesbianism as wonderfully normal life choices. I am quite positive that there are many organizations that provide help and support to girls without beliefs that are truly deviant from mainstream America.

You owe an apology to your customers and a change in your charity. Along with that, you may wish to eliminate the poor marketing folks who thought that supporting Girls Inc. was a good idea and get some people in that will continue the honorable ideals previously promoted.

Not all of the links on the American girls web site are available. The home page is totally different from 2 days ago. The infamous bracelet has to be searched for (I did not find it), and most pages are not available. Think something may be happening in marketing...

But I thought boycotts never work.

Keep the heat on these idiots.

Call the toll free number right now and voice your objection.

1-800-845-0005

1) Really? A year or so ago, on a thread about a 9 or 10 year old who'd been charged with sexual assault, a FReeper mother expressed amazement about his precocious physical capability, and inquired how much longer she might have before her then 6-7 year old son would have said capability. Parents are often clueless, especially if they've led sheltered lives such as opponents of this Girls Inc. site are suggesting are ideal. And such cluelessness can lead them to answer questions from their children in ways that make a perfectly normal child think there's something abnormal and/or bad about him/herself.

2) Probably from observation of young children hospitalized for conditions requiring close monitoring including during sleep and/or with EEGs.

3) Earth to Tuesday Afternoon: What do you think infant and toddler boys are doing when they rub their crotches? And some parents ignore it as normal, while others intervene urgently and verbally express disapproval in the same sort of tone they would use if the infant hit or bit a sibling.

4) Nobody said they were hermaphrodites. The article says they don't clearly KNOW which they are until age 2-3, and for a couple of years after that are often unsure that it's a permanent feature. They're just beginning to grapple with concepts like the fact that their parents were once children and they themselves will one day be adults. Many very basic things are unclear to preschoolers. A college professor of mine told a story about a friend's preschool aged son who was taken to a beach for the first time, and was greatly impressed by the motion of the waves. As they were driving home, he asked his parents "Did they turn the ocean off now that I'm gone?"

5) No, they're encouraging comfortable acceptance of the fact that girls' bodies and minds DO begin to change at around age 8, and that common manifestations of that are an interest in other girls bodies (mainly for reassurance that the perplexing changes in their own bodies are normal), and intensified emotional attachments to friends, who at that age are usually mostly same sex friends.

1) I had three boys so I can tell you it's perfectly normal. One Freeper does not a majority make. An infant's erection does not imply an ability to have sex.

Parents are often clueless, especially if they've led sheltered lives such as opponents of this Girls Inc. site are suggesting are ideal.

I am clueless about this sentence. Could you please rephrase it?

2) Somehow I doubt infants hooked up to monitors are stimulating themselves to orgasm. There is no reference link on the report. It is hearsay, or, worse, drawn from Kinsey's infamous Table 34.

3) The artilce talks about infant's sexual behavior, genital and nongenital. Infants. What kind of nongenital behavior does an infant exhibit? What is their definiton of an infant? Why the emphasis on infants?

3) The article first refers to infants, then says body exploration centers on the genitals in toddlers. Again, why this emphasis on infant sexuality? Yes, toddlers' grab their crotches occasionally but taking a child's hand away doesn't scar a child forever. Alternatively, my friend's daughter used to masturbate constantly. All the doctors said it wsa normal. Turned out she was being molested.

4) I admit I misread this one. But it seems to have been put in there for purely political reasons, i.e. gender is fluid. In my expereince I have not seen this gender confusion except in one boy whose father rejected him for his sister. Besides, the article says "many," not often or usually. Many is not definitive.

5) Well, I'm female and I didn't need "reassurance that the perplexing changes in their own bodies are normal." I knew they were normal and were anticipated.

This whole article has an agenda starting off with its emphasis on infant sexuality and ending with a call for reproductive rights and lessons about sexual desire for girls as young as 8. The only other articles I've seen like this come from pedophilia groups and Planned Barrenhood (which at least leaves infants out of their call for sexualization of children).

"You really don't get it, do you? Little girls go on the American Girl website to look at dolls and their accessories, to find fun games to play with their friends, to email online penpals"

Y'all seem to be having fun with this so have at it. I don't think you are going to do enough harm to the conservative cause for me to be worried about it.

I do understand why Christian bookstores would stop selling AG if they are going give money that goes the Boys and Girls clubs but I find the attacks short sighted, not unlike the people who are trying to put the Boy Scouts of business -because you are overlooking the vast good that Boys and Girls clubs do in this country. I know that first hand.

Y'all seem to be having fun with this so have at it. I don't think you are going to do enough harm to the conservative cause for me to be worried about it.

I don't know anything about a Boy Scout boycott or Christian bookstores. I don't believe I've ever even been in a Christian bookstore unless you count a St. Jude's shop, which probably has 10 books on its shelves.

But I will take great pleasure in pinging you to an article that will be posted at some point in the Spring (if not sooner), when Mattel restructures its American Girl unit because of the huge slump in AG's 4th quarter 2005 sales.

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